Listening Party Thread - Pawns & Kings

[DarkKnight12]

to the guys who were at the LP, you have not shared the biggest info of them all... does Myles drop an F-bomb in Holiday ?

[gbruin]

It sounds like a bunch of people came home from the LP with covid

Get well soon, friends.

[AB23]

Lmao I love it when he types out his reviews. Hell ya.

He should do that for a living instead of watch his crappy hockey team every year.

[anguyen92]

^^ Oh look whose talking. Mr. My team has only one great line, one great defensemen and a great goalie and that's all they got.

Technically, I kinda have to root for the Stars somewhat. Their young star winger is half-Filipino that grew up in Arcadia, CA. Close to LA.

[MaraCarr]

I am sad that I missed it but I am sure it was wonderful. I am planning to see them in Tampa for the New Year. Looking forward to that!

[gbruin]

I'll talk hockey.

I'll be at a certain banner raising ceremony tonight, in fact.

[anguyen92]

Part II: Getting in line for Pawns & Kings Listening Party and meeting the band.

So I left the hotel room at 12:00 PM with no cell phone in hand, and got on the bus to the main Bus Station hub where all of the buses starts or ends their route. Afterwards, it was around a 15 minute walk to the Beacham and, to make sure that I do not get lost, I wrote directions down on the back of a printed email confirmation of the Listening Party order receipt (that I printed thinking that they will ask for it). Got to the Beacham at around 12:45 PM and this time around, I was 3rd in line. My thought was, even if the venue decides to screw me over by splitting the lines, I should be assured a rail spot.

The people in front of me was a mother and daughter that drove all the way from Baltimore or DC the day before to be there. They said that they also had family in Sarasota, FL that they don’t mind driving to after this Listening Party. The couple behind me was a current or retired cop, and a woman that’s a couple of months pregnant that had this custom shirt that says “This is my first Alter Bridge concert” with an up arrow above the sentence highlighting the mother to be and a down arrow below the sentence highlighting the baby that’s going to be born. I thought, “What a great shirt and a great thing to tell to their kid a few years later.”

Anywho, the hours ticks by waiting while me alternating from sitting and standing outside of the venue, and I’m trying to figure out where the nearest restroom is, if I need to go, and someone told me that there is a Colombian Bakery next door that has a rest room (I’m pretty certain that shop was not there last time during the Walk the Sky listening party). You say the word bakery of any kind and I’m sold. Went to the bakery two times (for two restroom trips). Ended up getting a Blackberry smoothie, a Hawaiian empanada (yes, there’s a pineapple and ham empanada), and a cannoli. Set me back about $12.00 and that was a pretty good tasty mid-afternoon snack to hold me over for the rest of the day. On top of that, I wouldn’t mind going back to that place again if there will be another listening party at the Beacham in the future.

As time ticks by and people are starting to get in line, you get random people in the streets asking, “What’s going on here? Who’s playing tonight?” and you get the fans saying, “Alter Bridge,” and clearly, people in the streets have no idea who they are. Same thing happened during the Walk the Sky listening party. A huge contrast in comparison to Metallica’s 40th Anniversary shows in San Francisco, last December, where you see banners on poles everywhere highlighting the show for their hometown band and everywhere I went, whether it was a restaurant or a pier, you see someone in a Metallica shirt.

Another contrast was where the concerts I went to before flying out to Orlando in 2019 and this year were in stadiums in the USC campus. Iron Maiden at Banc of California Stadium in 2019 and Rammstein at the Coliseum this year. Massive stadium shows that has a huge buzz in the USC area and I go on the Metro Rail and be surrounded by a lot of people in black shirts heading in the same direction. In some ways, people could think, “How can you go from watching a stadium show that holds around 20k-40k that has tremendous production values to going to a show that holds 500 people for a band, in their hometown nonetheless, no one in the area knows that’s playing?” I just shrug it off and think, “It’s Alter Bridge. I wouldn’t do this kind of trip for any band except for them and their music and the fans around me is the best group of fans to be around.”

Around 4PM, the line grows larger and as the time goes by, you see a lot of fans going, “Hey, look whose here,” and it’s nice little family-like reunion since I’m sure we haven’t seen the familiar faces that travel from everywhere for these shows since the final show in Spokane back in 2020 before the shutdown. Even for me, I saw some familiar faces, especially a group of woman that was there for the four shows I went to in 2020 and exchanged pleasantries and I talked with one of them (whose handicapped where I ended up in the 2nd row on the floor in some of those 2020 shows behind her, which in some cases was just as good as being on the rail) about the final show of the US tour in 2023 in Highland, CA and how it’s going to be in a casino we’re trying to figure out how GA was going to work in a casino theater. I told her that I’m expecting there to be a twist on the seating arrangement the day of the show. Sometimes, people may question why spend $275.00 on something like this and the value isn’t just the autograph poster, the meet & greet picture, the album listening, and the acoustic set. It’s a chance to congregate amongst the most attentive fans of one of the more attentive fanbases you will ever see and be pumped that our favorite band is ready to come back and be the band where all goes well when they are active.

Almost 5:00 PM, and security was ready to put up the rails to separate the people in the streets casually walking by and the line and they set up a smoking area (which people did oblige to go to). One funny thing, I think I heard someone say, "Do we need two lines for this?” and the main guy organizing the rail says, “No,” which is sweet relief for me knowing that I will not get screwed this time around. Another funny thing that happened is that there was a bunch of policeman and cars a couple of feet nearby the venue and they were in the process of arresting someone. It didn’t stall anything when it comes to entering the Beacham, but it must be embarrassing to not only get arrested on a street that looks like it’s going to be horribly congested during rush hour, but to get arrested while having 200 people near you being witnesses of you going into the police car.

Afterwards, the guy organizing the venue security laid some rules for us when entering the venue. Now, the key is that there is no cellphones or recording devices allowed when entering the venue. However, the guy says, “If we see you pull up your cellphone at any point during the event, you are out of here.” Now I didn’t know if that meant that I would have been ok if I brought my phone, but I just can’t have it at plain sight. I guess we will never know, since I wasn’t going to go spend the next hour going to the hotel and back to the Beacham and get my phone for a sense of security.

A little after 5:00 PM hits and they finally let us in. I checked in by verifying my name on the order and provide my ID, empty my pockets for security purposes, got my poster and while waiting for the first group to get their picture taken, I saw Tim Tournier near a table and I told him quickly, “You run a tight ship around here,” and he told me yeah and that was that. I wish I could have said more like, “Thanks a million for managing this band around where they can do the things they want to do to be fulfilled as musicians,” but the brain can’t come up with those kinds of sentences in the heat of the moment. Also spotted Supa Dave as well, the main radio guy for the Hard Rock radio station in Orlando, who provided a lot of solid help for the overall experience as I will divulge later.

Anyway, after the first group got their picture with AB, it was my turn. I didn’t say much other than, “We meet again,” and they told me it’s great to see you again and I don’t know if they mean it or if they actually recognize me, but I’m not going to fret about that. So when it was time for the group picture, the photographer told me if it’s possible for me to adjust my glasses due to camera lightning and I thought I’ll go ahead and take it off and go with that for the picture and I thought the picture looks a little better than the last time I went (in the same Royal Albert Hall skull t-shirt and dark pants I wore back in 2019).



My final words to the band were, “I’ll see you guys again for three shows, this tour.” They told me all right and said it’s great seeing you again and that was that. On my way to the floor where I finally landed an earned front and center rail spot for an AB show. I wish I was able to take a picture to document this, but nope, so hopefully, AB has it somewhere out there in their Social Media of the end of show group photo with the crowd behind them where I can spot me in the crowd. Since this post was a lot longer than I though it would be, I need to split the actual contents of the Listening Party in another post. Post will be TBD, hopefully, later today.

[AB23]

^^ Oh look whose talking. Mr. My team has only one great line, one great defensemen and a great goalie and that's all they got.

Technically, I kinda have to root for the Stars somewhat. Their young star winger is half-Filipino that grew up in Arcadia, CA. Close to LA.

(his brother is also a Leafs prospect, come on Andrew, you should know this)

Pretty sure I'm the one who introduced you to Steve Dangle years ago right? You owe me for that one. Stars deserve your fandom.

[anguyen92]

I know his younger brother, Nick, is a Leafs prospect. I do hope that despite his slow path, he makes it as a player. I do want to root for players that grew up in near the LA area. Bonus points that they are of an Asian ethnicity.

As for Steve Dangle, I don't think you introduced me to him. I discovered him from a different outlet, from a Sports Youtuber name UrinatingTree and one thing leads to another and I ended up following him. Also helps that him and Edge knows each other. Those Leafs fans know how to stick together and suffer together.

As I'm drafting up the album part of the listening party, I may need another post to cover the concert itself. I'll post the song by song recalling later today.

[anguyen92]

Part Three: The Pawns & Kings album listening portion

The floor setup this time around is interesting. You got seated tables around the venue where people can have the option to sit at the floor area if they wanted to. For me, I thought, yeah, that would be great to rest my legs, but I’m never going to get another opportunity to be front and center at the rail, so no table seat for me. This time around, they definitely have it set in mind to not hold 500 people for this event. More like 200-300 people, which is fine with me. The house music choice is interesting. It’s mainly random acoustic covers of 90s/00s rock songs.

As we wait around 90 minutes or so before the album listening experience begins, everyone was chatting amongst themselves and there were a few people there that actually read my posts of the Walk the Sky Listening Party. I thought, “Wow, people actually read those?” Told them I appreciate the comments and told them, I don’t know if I have it in me to write another long form review of the experience this time around. They informed me, “That’s ok, up to you.” As you can tell by the length of these posts, I still have it in me to write long and incoherent posts. Looking at the stage setup, this is certainly a setup for an acoustic show. You got seats, you got bongos, and you got a video screen of the Pawns & Kings album cover as the backdrop.

Around 7:20 finally hits and Supa Dave comes out and told us that he’s not going to say much, he’s going to let the music play and off we go with the Pawns & Kings album. I’ll do my best with what I can with the song by song commentary.

This is War: When I heard that this was a song title, I really hoped this was not going to be one of those generic rock tracks that bands like Nickelback would milk it to the ground for. Nope, this was quite a heavy song. A very suitable opener for this kind of album. A song that marks that AB came to play with this one.

Dead Among the Living, Silver Tongue, and Sin After Sin: Sadly, I cannot recall much from these tracks. Nothing wrong with those tracks, but nothing that grabbed my attention to much hearing it on loud speakers. Maybe, I’ll think differently once I relisten to the album when it officially comes out.

Stay: The Mark Tremonti on lead vocals track. As some people might have noted from my posts that I have this weird condition where after a couple of minutes into an AB set, I hear Myles like he’s on helium when he’s talking between songs. Now I think it’s gotten better as I got to more AB shows, but when it comes to Mark on vocals, I had a hard time hearing his voice on speakers and he was the one I had issues hearing well in-between songs during the live set. I had the same issues as well regarding hearing Forever Falling at the Listening Party. The best I can say was that this song did have more of a Godspeed feel to it.

Holiday: When Supa Dave introduced this song, he tried to do his best English accent when pronouncing Holiday and he stated that he’s glad he can get away with saying it like that here than he would if he was in the UK, since otherwise, he’s likely beaten up if he spoke in that accent. I guess the best way to describe this song is basically them sounding like having more of an edge where Myles uses his voice that he would with Slash, and I did state that I think there were a few sections where I reminiscent of Coming Home.

Fable of the Silent Son: I really want to quell my expectations with this one, even though this is the longest song of the album and I know that they would not create a song of this length if they were not happy with it. I will say that I don’t think is a typical epic long song in the veins of Fortress or The Last Hero or in Tremonti’s case, Marching in Time. There’s a lot of interesting sections that I want to relisten to. I don’t think this is a very solo-intensive song that the track length would suggest, but as the song title suggests, there is a story in that song that I do think had different shifts here and there. I do honestly think, on first listen, that this is the most unique song that AB has ever created.

Season of Promise: Now this is the song that gave me some goosebumps on from start to finish. This was a fun song to listen to. I had stated that this sounded like a much more refined version of Never Say Die. Very positive vibes on this one. I think people are going to like this one a lot.

Last Man Standing: This song I felt like had a lot more solo sections than Fable of the Silent Son. Can’t remember much else, but I would rate this song high as well.

Pawns & Kings: So the title track, a long while ago, when Brian posted something on Instagram, you heard a small snippet of Myles saying something about Courage and that was the opening line to this song. Great chorus. Love the bridge section. This song is everything I want in an album closer that’s also the title track.

Overall, I think I’m pretty certain that I will like this album better than The Last Hero and Walk the Sky. I think the production issues was not glaring in Pawns & Kings as it was in The Last Hero and I do think the songs on this album had a lot deeper instrumental sections than Walk the Sky had. So overall, I think AB did a great job rectifying the flaws and smoothing it out in Pawns & Kings. I need to relisten to the first half of the album again to reassure myself of my thoughts of the album in full, but the back half of the album really delivered, but I don't expect AB do anything differently when it comes to that part of the album.

Favorite songs, so far: This is War, Fable of the Silent Son, Season of Promise, Last Man Standing, and Pawns & Kings.

The concert portion of the review will come at some point in a few days.

[AB23]

He doesn't remember me introducing him :'(

[fix]

Thanks! That was a nice read. A bit scared of Stay, because I didn’t like Godspeed at all but I’ve heard other people say the same. But we’ll see, I think in general I’ll really like this album.

[Schulzy]

anguyen92 deserves an award of some sort for his LP posts. Next best thing to being there. I went to Tremonti's ADM in Florida but my summary doesn't even come close to what he writes.

[Dan Dando]

anguyen92 deserves an award of some sort for his LP posts.

Agreed. Looking forward to the post covering the concert side of things.

[gbruin]

anguyen92... Bravo!

[anguyen92]

Ok, now that we had over a week into listening to the Pawns & Kings album, I might as well bring this back up.

Part IV: The Acoustic Set and Q&A
After the album playing is done, there was a short 10-15 minute break in between to get ready for the acoustic set. At around 8:20, AB comes out. Dressed in the same clothes that they wore in the meet & greet, which is slightly more casual than what they normally wear during live sets (and I think Myles himself pointed that out in the show).

The setlist:
Before Tomorrow Comes
Burn It Down
Lover
Sliver Tongue
In Loving Memory
Watch Over You
Open Your Eyes

Fun part about Before Tomorrow Comes, everyone was singing along word for word in the opener. Funnier part is that Myles flubbed a line in the bridge verse (even though there was a tablet right in front of him that he was probably using as a lyric teleprompter or something.)

As for the rest of the set, I’m really pleased about it. Hearing Before Tomorrow Comes live along with Burn it Down and Lover. Nice to hear those tracks live for the first time when it comes to me seeing AB live. Naturally, In Loving Memory, Watch Over You, and Open Your Eyes got the best reactions of the night. Band sounds great, which isn’t really hard to accomplish in an acoustic setting, but they look ready. Most importantly, they look relaxed and pretty chill even moreso than you would see AB live.

They only played seven songs, which does seem short even for a Listening Party live set, but they have a reason why. As an interesting twist to a typical listening party, they decided to add a Q&A, after each song, and have the crowd ask some questions. Now, it started off poorly when they pointed a guy in front to ask a question and the guy was asking and everyone in the building was talking where the band can’t hear anything. Myles stated that this was their fault and they were not prepared properly for this (a rarity since they are always well-prepared in just about anything).

Luckily, Supa Dave volunteer himself to go to the crowd with a mic and will screen questions and all he needed was for Myles to point where to go. Here are the highlights:

First question. What causes the band to go into developing long songs like Blackbird, Fortress, Cry of Achilles, Fable of the Silent Son, etc. Myles said, as a joke answer, that they, except for Flip, have no life and that’s how they are able to write those long songs. The more realistic answer is that they don’t go into intentionally writing long songs, but it’s more of as they like what they are developing in writing a song, they just wanted to keep adding things they like that fits the song and develop that way.

Next question. Someone asked “Who is the diva of the group,” and shockingly, Brian comes up to the mic and says something like, “It’s Myles, because I can see his saliva on the mic.”

I think someone mentioned about how people on social media groups can interpret the band’s lyrics on albums like Pawns & Kings or The Last Hero as political and I don’t think they gave a clear answer and Myles waved it off saying something like, “I would love to write about Georgia Peach if I had the chance.”

Naturally the Q&A discussions went towards best places to play live and loudest crowds where Mark, obviously, points out to England and the rest of the UK as the obvious answer. Someone, who I think was from Scotland, really wanted to boast that he feels that the Scottish crowds are the loudest and best of them all and I think Mark wasn’t going to deny that. However, Myles thankfully decided to give us people, in the states, a bone where he mentioned that they looked at metrics stateside, a few days prior to the event, and they were surprised on where things were positively growing when it comes to AB in North America. Even though it’s taken 18 years of hard work and development, they are liking where things are at with them in the states. I’m sure it helps that they are going to do a very extensive States tour in suitable sizable venues early next year and hopefully do some more shows in the states and I wish for some shows for the Canadian and Mexican fans as well as the year goes on.

One of the more interesting questions asked in the Q&A is someone asked, anyone but Mark, “What’s the worst part about being in a band with Mark Tremonti.” This is the part where both Flip and Brian points out that he practices too much on the guitar. Now they obviously love it when Mark practices and is well-conditioned and all when it comes to guitar work. However, they mentioned that there are shows where the dressing room is a lot smaller than what they are accustomed to and they would like to have their space in the room, and be in deep quiet mode in mentally preparing for what’s to come. Sometimes, it can be hard to get that when Mark is insanely close by practicing the guitar and pointed that Myles doesn’t have to deal with that, since he’s in another room doing his vocal warm-ups.

I think one of the final questions of the show was what got everyone in the band into music. The answers are obvious. Myles said Stevie Wonder being on Sesame Street. Mark says listening to Metallica’s Welcome Home (Sanitarium). Brian says Rush. I don’t think he mentioned a specific song, but if he did, we didn’t hear it, since the moment he says Rush, I and people around me were going “RUSH!!!” He did state that guys like Geddy Lee and Neil Peart inspired him to want to be in a rhythm section in a band. Flip said Living Colour, which brings into Mark saying something about Flip. I think he said that when Mark and Scott Stapp was trying to get guys for this band that eventually became Creed, I believe Mark said something like he wasn’t quite sold on Flip being their guy on the drums and that he changed his mind when he, in the background, heard Flip played a drum cover of a Living Colour song and he was like, “This is our guy for the drums.” Since then in those wacky early-mid 90s years, Mark and Flip has stuck together from Creed to AB and everything in between and to the now.

One last question was, “Do you think that Flip and Brian gets the recognition that they deserve for their roles in AB?” Myles answered it where it’s kinda sad that people don’t recognize Flip and Brian for their roles in AB. He honestly believes that, whilst Mark and Myles write the songs and lyrics, when they go into pre-production and work the songs out with Flip and Brian regarding the rhythm section, that’s the moment, those song ideas become well-defined Alter Bridge songs. They do believe that if they were working with anyone else on the rhythm sections in developing these song ideas, they wouldn’t be Alter Bridge songs at its core.

Overall, the Q&A sections was great. I think the crowd asked some solid questions that can dig a little deeper into the band, but not be out of line. AB provided answers that we probably already know watching video interviews or articles or otherwise, but they did what they can to go a little deeper in the answers with this crowd. Also, both Flip and Brian gets to say things. That's insanely rare to see at an AB show.

After the show was done, that’s when they started handing out the picks and setlists and stuff. Myles gave a setlist sheet to the pregnant lady, I mentioned was behind me in line in a previous part, up front. That is the right first person to give a setlist to for this kind of event. No other answers are correct. Well, giving a sheet to the handicapped person (who I also mentioned in a previous part) next to me is also correct, which did happen. Then Brian started was going to hand a setlist sheet to anybody and I was in the right position to extend my arm out further than anyone else and LOOK WHAT I GOT!!!!



I still haven’t figured out how I want to hang it next to the Tremonti setlist I got from a stage crew when they were in LA back in March. I’ll figure something out. Anywho, AB took their end of show photo with the crowd and that was that. Ended at 9:30, which was fine with me since I had to walk 15 minutes and catch a bus back to the hotel room. Before that, I checked the merch booth to see if there’s anything cool. Nothing as cool as the Kung-Fu themed shirt popped up sadly. I didn’t really want to buy any Pawns & Kings album shirts because I hate the color scheme (and yes, it’s due to hockey reasons. I'm petty that way). I thought about getting a hoodie, but they said that they were sold out of my size, so no merch to buy for me this time around. We’ll see how it is next time.

The walk back to the station was scary. There was some people that’s trying to beg for spare change. It’s hard to make me look non-noticeable when I’m wearing a band t-shirt, and have a signed poster on hand. Some dude pointed that out and I just ignored him and I go on with my walk. It’s weird to say this, but I feel a lot more comfortable for some reason walking at around 11 PM in Downtown LA on a Friday night, walking from a train station to a parking garage that’s a quarter mile walk, than I did walking around Orlando at 9:30 PM on a Thursday night. I think I saw a motorcycle event happening nearby the bus station that didn’t look dangerous, but nothing I would want to partake in.

Got to the bus station, got on the right bus, bus left at around 9:50 PM. Took until 10:10 to get to my stop and got back to my motel room in one piece at 10:20 PM and posted here that I was ok with a lot of things to say.

Well, that’s it for the AB portion of this Orlando trip. Nothing else happened that’s AB-related for the rest of this trip. I don’t know if you guys still want me to post what else I did in Orlando (which wasn’t a lot), but I still got things I want to say.

Will mull it over the next few days, but as of right now, after going to 12 other concerts, a comedy show, and this event, this is the best thing I went to this year. Without a question. Everything outside of the Listening Party has been a headache, but after what I’ve been through at this point, the event lived up to expectations and then more and I’m pleased that I was able to write these long-length posts about it.

[gbruin]

That's fantastic stuff, anguyen! Thanks for sharing it.

Some questions...

The Pawns & Kings color scheme that you hate...FVGK, right? I have to work to ignore that part, too.

Did you give Myles plague again?

Why would you think for an instant we WOULDN'T want to hear about what else you did in Orlando? Don't leave us hanging. Give us Part V:

[anguyen92]

That's fantastic stuff, anguyen! Thanks for sharing it.

Some questions...

The Pawns & Kings color scheme that you hate...FVGK, right? I have to work to ignore that part, too.

Did you give Myles plague again?

Why would you think for an instant we WOULDN'T want to hear about what else you did in Orlando? Don't leave us hanging. Give us Part V:

Yep. The Vegas Golden Knights. The Pawns & Kings album color scheme looks similar to those colors and I just hate it. The album design is cool, but I just hate the color schemes.

Also, this time around, I didn't want to shake anyone's hands since we are still in a pandemic mode. I would not want to be the reason that the band got COVID (for the record, I did not get any COVID symptoms at all) and thus had to cancel a highly anticipated tour.

All right, I'll give a part V. Probably will be out late today or tomorrow.

[anguyen92]

I just realized that my last post is so lengthy, I've been getting error messages. That can mean one thing. There will be a small part VI for this one, but first, part V.

Part V: Final day in Orlando.
All right. As stated before, the rest of these post will contain nothing AB-related, but contains the rest of my trip from what I did on the Friday and what happened on the way back to SoCal. Well, after a pretty ok night sleep that lasted 10 hours or so, and had some minor leg cramps, which walking around and standing for a good long period of time the day prior didn’t help, it’s time to actually do something in the Orlando area.

It took me about 30 minutes to figure out where I want to eat for lunch. I knew right away that I wanted to get Vietnamese cuisine. It seems weird since I am Vietnamese and I currently live in an area where it’s a 10 minute drive away from Westminster where Little Saigon is, but I wanted to know how the cuisine tastes in Orlando. So after some browsing, I found a good restaurant to eat in.

Took a shower, put on my Tremonti Sings Sinatra t-shirt, and headed to the bus stop at around 12:30. Got on the bus to the main bus hub in Orlando, and took another bus to a part of the Orlando Mills 50 district. Walking around the area, it kinda reminded me of being in the Vietnamese parts of Pomona, CA. You got your various specialty markets, salons, and has just a bit that “gritty” small town within the city feeling to it. You pair it with a bright sun and it’s as if I never left Southern California.

Went to a place called Pho 88. Now, this may seem odd, but I’m not a huge fan of pho for whatever reason. Soup as an entrée is just not for me (except for clam chowder in a bread bowl, I’ll take that good stuff). Typically, when I go to Pho restaurants with my family, I get a rice dish which I got in this restaurant. My appetizers for this meal contains typical shrimp and pork egg rolls and some smaller egg rolls that contains imitation crab and cream cheese. I never had these crab egg rolls before, so that was new. They were pretty good.



For my rice dish, I get this dish that includes a pork chop, a fried egg, shredded pork, some mixture of an pork and egg quiche along with your typical side pairings for this kind of dish: rice, pickled daikon, carrots, lettuce, and they give you a small bowl of fish sauce to pour over the rice or otherwise. I don’t think I can say I ever went to a Vietnamese restaurant and ever had a bad rice dish. This rice dish was good. The meal costed $32 (including tip), but I don’t mind it. Support the local restaurants and whatnot when they give you good food of solid quality.



Afterwards, I then went to a bakery nearby called Paris Banh Mi Orlando. They make Banh Mi sandwiches (which includes stuff like pate, ham, cold cuts, or bbq pork, etc. and top it with pickled daikon and carrots, and you can have it with jalapenos). I didn’t want a sandwich there for today. Instead, I got a lychee slushy drink and got it with rainbow jelly and got some pastries as well. Had a custard pastry, a strawberry pastry, a few others that I cannot recall, and got this dessert that has a mixture of flan on the bottom of the cup and some form of gelatin on top. Good stuff. No pictures here though. Set me back, roughly $20.00.

Took a walk around a neighborhood to kill time and found a park that has a nice lake. Funny thing was that I saw an entrance in between houses that looked like it was an opening to walk around the lake, but it turned out after I entered the area, it was just a place where the houseowner to lounge around to see the lake with no areas to walk around the lake. Property values are probably really high if you have a clear lake view near your backyard. That stated, after walking around long enough, I found a bench and was able to take this picture.



At around 3:30 or so, I opted to take a bus to the nearest Target, as my phone charger looks like it’s in extremely poor condition, and decided to play it safe and get a new one. Got one for $10.00. Went to the Burlington next door to see if they have some interesting plaid shirts I like to buy, but no dice this time around. Decided that’s enough for the day and time to get back to the hotel room before sundown. On the bus ride home, some passenger decided to be extremely oblivious and blasted some really loud angsty music (not AB sadly) where the bus driver threatened that if the person does not turn it down where no one else can hear it, he would drop everyone off at the nearest stop.

Got back at the hotel room at around 6:00 PM, took a few hours nap, and watched a high stakes poker live stream from the Hustler Casino in LA (great live stream that they show weekdays) where there was millions of dollars on the table and they were playing big pots and having some good laughs about a weird incident on one of the streams the week prior.

The stream went from 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM EST and it was time for me to get ready to pack my bags and head back to the airport. Left the hotel key at a clear spot in the room as the hotel manager stated and booked a Lyft for $32.00 at 3:00 AM to head back to the airport and will begin a 15 hour duration from when I got out of the hotel to when I get home. Not much happened, but enough for me to include a Part VI. TBD.